Bosworth on Physics, Psychology, and Software

Adam Bosworth almost always makes me think, so I jump at a chance to
listen to him or read what he writes. He recently gave a talk in NYC
as part of the Google Speaker Series and Darryl
Taft wrote up a report
at eWeek.

Bosworth talked about how physics and psychology affect which
applications fail and which succeed. His examples: AJAX, PDAs, and
natural language recognition. His recommendations:

Keep it simple and stupid--even if that requires more clicks

Use AJAX where it makes a difference--not just the geewhiz
factor

Make your tools transparent and fast

Support bottom-up learning

Google's success, of course, can be attributed to these (and other)
ideas.